Though it shares many characteristics with similar forms of live entertainment, professional wrestling sits at a unique intersection of scripted performance, sport, and television. Discourse surrounding the subject, like in any fan culture, often boils down to arguments about commercial success, rather than the effectiveness of the performances themselves. 

I don't begrudge anyone's taste in professional wrestling. I do, however, take issue with the way people interpret success and failure in the sport. Before tuning in for your favorite wrestling show this week, consider how metrics related to TV ratings, ticket sales, and media rights offer quantitative insight but do not measure quality.

I implore all wrestling watchers to filter out the promotional noise and find the good and bad in professional wrestling ourselves.

First: a note on the sentiment that we should simply Enjoy All Wrestling. This type of blind positivity does us no good. A fairer interpretation of this idea is to allow people to enjoy the wrestling they like. With this in mind, we must also continue to scrutinize the business practices of all wrestling promotions, big and small, in good faith. 

Grappling With Financials

Wrestling companies drive achievement narratives by touting their business accomplishments above all else. Due to its origins in the carnival days, professional wrestling remains inextricably linked to financial outcomes. 

Its history also looms large in vocabulary used to this day — "mark," "promoter," "kayfabe" — casting a profit-above-all shadow over the sport. After all, quantifiable accomplishments are easier to observe than the quality of a performance, which requires introspection and close reading.

It's important to know your role, as The Rock had told so many coworkers for all those years. On the Sept. 7, 2025 edition of Wrestling Observer Live, host Andrew Zarian stated, regarding the recent ESPN-WWE deal: 

"It doesn't matter how great [...] your sports-based product is. It comes down to your sales team being able to sell ads." 

Here, Zarian refers to WWE's business success, and as an analyst, this is important information for him to cover. He's not using this as an argument as to why WWE delivers high-quality wrestling, and we shouldn't either.

WWE has also increased its push to charge city governments site fees for major events, leveraging people's tax dollars while still raising ticket prices. Mark Shapiro, COO of TKO — the holdings group that owns WWE — said the following this week regarding WWE's ticket prices:

"WWE is not where the UFC is yet on ticket yields. [...] We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn't totally focused on maxing the opportunity there."

As such, it's counterintuitive to praise a wrestling company's financial success as wrestling success. By doing so, we risk fracturing the community by reinforcing these companies' achievement narratives, which may price fans out of attending events entirely.

There's Always A Story

Appreciating professional wrestling as a series of athletic feats alone is completely acceptable, just as enjoying a movie or book for the plot and its characters alone would be. However, a close reading can only enrich your enjoyment. 

On the March 28, 2023, episode of Renee Paquette's podcast The Sessions, Jon Moxley reflected on the intersection of sport and narrative:

Every football game has a story. 

"Hey, what happened in the Bengals game last night?"
"Well, they got out to a really big lead, the other team chipped away at it, and they lost in the fourth quarter."

Or, it was a defensive struggle in a low-scoring game. Or, it was a very high-scoring game. [Likewise,] every match has a story. Sometimes, people talk about storytelling and psychology, and they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. A story can be anything. Wrestling can be anything.

Look for the source of the conflict between opponents, along with how they approach each other in the ring, doubt themselves or display confidence, and overcome struggle. How do these elements manifest themselves through physical motion and competition? How do we arrive at the end of a match in a different place from where we started, how did we get there, and where are we going?

What captivated you about a match? Was there a sequence that made it work? Or not work? What made the performances believable? What made you not look at your phone for 15-20 minutes? I'm willing to bet that it wasn't the company's strong quarterly earnings.

Old and New

The Young Bucks' acrobatic and often post-modern style has long upset fans and analysts who have more conservative tastes in wrestling. You're welcome to dislike the Bucks' style, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that their matches lack story. 

After all, Sting handpicked the Young Bucks as his final opponents at AEW's Revolution event in 2024. He recently reflected on the bout, saying:

"It was exactly as I envisioned it being [...] It's probably the highlight of 40 years for me."

This was a chaotic fight, complete with Young Bucks nonsense, tables, ladders, and Darby once again risking his life for our enjoyment. 

The sum of these parts, though, was Sting's attempt to keep pace with a younger generation as he took flight from a ladder, cascaded off the stage, and flew through a pane of glass throughout the match. Ultimately, he proved to himself and the fans that he was, in fact, able to hang, prevailing with a simple Scorpion Death Lock.

Separate

As with all forms of art, it's unwise to equate financial success with artistic success. If you find the business side of artistic pursuits interesting, know that I am not trying to change your mind;  I'm merely suggesting that you separate the two elements in your perception of professional wrestling. 

Picture the best concert you’ve ever attended. Was it in a stadium? A DIY space? A concert hall? The artist has the crowd in the palm of their hand, and you find yourself utterly captivated with their performance. The next day, when your friend asks if you enjoyed the show, I pray that you don't cite the artist's monthly Spotify listeners.

Matt Whittle is a freelance editor, writer, and musician. His work can be found on Forbes, Psychology.org, and more.